If Edmonton native Todd Standing is right, the elusive Bigfoot may be elusive no more.

Standing will be hosting a documentary showing tonight at the Vic Juba Community Theatre about the legendary creature, and says he not only knows where Bigfoot lives, but has also seen one.

“I’m showing the third video, a video which hasn’t been publicly released yet,” said Standing. “It’s going to be the most definitive piece of Bigfoot evidence ever.”

Standing said he had a kineticist – an expert on motion related to body movement – do an analysis on the footage and was told by the kineticist that the fastest man in the world could not do it in 24 seconds, while the bipedal animal on film did it in 17 seconds.

“There are no special effects done to the tape,” said Standing. “If no human being could have done it… what did it? I’m not saying believe me, but all I want is to get a CNN or a NBC type media to come with me, and I’ll prove to everyone.”

A close friend of Standing’s had a run-in with Bigfoot in the region known as Sylvanic, which got Standing interested in the possibility of delving into the Bigfoot myth for himself. All Standing will reveal about the location of Sylvanic is that it is in the North American Rocky Mountains.

Standing embarked on several expeditions to Sylvanic beginning in 2005 in search of Bigfoot, and says after three expeditions he still didn’t believe that Bigfoot definitively existed. It wasn’t until he saw the nocturnal behaviour of an unidentified animal that he started to change from skeptic to believer.

“It was what I saw at night… no animal could have done the things we witnessed,” said Standing. “It wasn’t a ghost out there either – it was flesh and blood. There’s something out there no one knows about.”

Standing says he became a believer when he heard an animal traverse 200 metres of dense bush and climb a 50 foot rock face straight up.

“When I heard that in 40 seconds, I became a believer,” said Standing. “I couldn’t deny what I heard.”

Although Standing says he could easily go public with the information he has now and show people exactly what it takes to capture these animals, he wants to make sure the animals are protected from people who might hunt them for sport.

“They evade people as a community,” said Standing. “I believe they have a special sensory perception, but I can’t prove that yet. All I know is they triangulate themselves in an area of the mountains wherever they feel comfortable and when people come, they have daywatchers, so they just back away.”

Death threats, angry letters and furious people all come with the territory for a man who is trying to prove what some say simply cannot exist.

“Some people are just ignorant and rude about things,” said Standing. “But for the most part, I get tremendous support from the people and places I go to.”

Standing said his next video will focus on obtaining physical evidence of Bigfoot, something he doesn’t foresee as being a big problem.

“The only reason we were unable to get physical evidence last time is because it was raining 90 per cent of the time,” said Standing. “When you’re looking for hair samples in the muck and the rain, it’s just not going to happen. But we came back with the video samples, which are very conclusive, and we want to carry on with our research and in the spring do another expedition.”

The documentary shows at 7 p.m., 8 p.m., and 9 p.m. tonight at the Vic Juba, and all proceeds for the non-profit event will be donated to the Lloydminster SPCA.

So did anyone go see the third video, “the most definitive piece of Bigfoot evidence ever”, last Friday?

Is it just me, or does the whole Sylvanic thing seem like it was produced by the biggest nerds in the world? I’ve gone to the Sylvanic site several times and the thing is presented like something like an eleven year old would do for YouTube. Or is it just a Canadian thing?

I’m pretty jaded by these big announcements and promises of mind boggling evidence these days. I think a lot of people here probably are a little sick of it. If this person is so confident of his own evidence, then he should just come out and show us what he’s got, and if he has some reason for not doing that, then don’t make sensationalist announcements to begin with. That may seem harsh, but I think we have all put up with an awful lot of this these days, from Malaysian Bigfoot to captured Yarwen and more. I am simply not going to hold my breath on this one until evidence other than bold claims comes to light. I am just not going to get sucked in. Sorry. Another thing that bothers me a little is all of the speculation this guy has made on the Bigfoot such as “daywatchers” and extra sensory percaption and whatnot. Based on what? On hearing something unexplained in the night? It is not explained how he has come to all of these conclusions. If only all zoologists were so lucky to learn so much about a species from so little information! Sorry to be so sarcastic, but people should know by now that this sensationalism just isn’t going to cut it nowadays. Sigh.

Well put mystery man. I had the misfortune of seeing Standing’s first show here in Edmonton so I’ve seen, first hand, how sketchy and inconsistent this whole Sylvanic project has been. The worst part about it is his chilling commitment to seeing this thing through (whenever that will be). So I expect to hear a lot more of Standing and his brutal website as he tries desperately to: gain credibility (by donating profits from the shows to charity), make money (by selling crap through his website which the profits are not going to charity) and feed his ego (by duping the naive and becoming a celebrity in the process). I’ve already discussed this too many times in other forums (unexplained-mysteries.com) and am trying to just let it go and not waste anymore of my time. Peace.